Financial Investigations
Financial investigation is an important legal procedure. They help in many personal matters such as divorce, fraud, or in the case that a family member dies. There can be many technical terms for a financial investigation. This will help you to understand what they are and what they mean. Also, we will help explain when a financial investigation needs to be done. First, what does a financial investigation really mean though? This small article will help to answer that question.
A financial investigation means that an investigation is done on one’s assets for various reasons. One reason might be because of a divorce. Every state has different laws regarding what happens when people get divorced. For example, Missouri is a 50/50 state. This means that everything is split down the middle as to what each person gets. Half of the debt goes to one person and half goes to the other. This would be the same for money in bank accounts as well as a 401K. To ensure that the divorcee is getting their half, a financial investigation can be performed to know of all their former spouse’s assets.
There are different names that people use regarding financial investigation such as asset search, asset check, asset investigation, asset trace, and asset discovery. This might seem daunting because you don’t know which one you need, but the truth is they all mean the same thing. There are just many ways to say the same thing. The same is true for such terms as find assets, search assets, tract assets, investigate assets, locate assets, and check assets. There is one term that is related to financial investigations that mean something very different and that is “Judgment”. A judgment is when a court case has ended and a final decision is made that declares money be given to the winning party. The winning party is called a “judgment creditor” and the losing party is called a “judgment debtor”. This is imputed into public records and after 30 days (in Maryland) the creditor may start the collection of money from the debtor.
When does a financial investigation need to be done? Well, in addition to the divorce example stated earlier, there may also need to be when a family member has died. Often times when a sibling, mate, or parent dies there needs to be a financial investigation done to know what is in the persons will and what will go to probate. This will help in making good decisions and know exactly what that person has. This information can help when such assets go to probate. Another reason one might want to do a financial investigation is for judgment collection. The debtor might say that he doesn’t have the money and you believe he does. To solve this, you would to a financial investigation on them to find out if they are being honest.
Financial investigations can be very helpful in solving many problems. Although it can be confusing we hope this helped settle in questions you may have. RCI International Process Service and Investigations is here to help those who need this done. We make sure to get to the bottom of every case. For more questions that need to be answered about financial investigation please contact us at (410) 6932-8992 or look on our financial investigations page.
